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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-26 Daily Xml
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Question Time

GOULBURN AND MURRAY VALLEY PIPELINE

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my right will come to order!

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Attorney is warned.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: My question is to the Premier. Does he support Labor's plan to construct a north-south pipeline in Victoria to extract 75 gigalitres of water per year from the Goulburn and Murray Valley systems to Melbourne?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:24): I made my position clear on this before, which you are well aware. Not only have I made submissions to the federal government, but let us—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop will come to order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Yes, I am going to adopt the same tactic, because, obviously, the design is for the opposition to shout over the top of you. As soon as that happens, I will sit down: I have all afternoon. The point is that there is a plan in the federal parliament by some South Australian senators that would, if implemented, completely abort the transfer of constitutional powers over the River Murray that we all want. I remember when John Howard—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Let's go back over the history.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier has the call.

Ms Chapman: No, he sat down.

The SPEAKER: The Premier has the call.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Let's just track back in time—because we've all got a lot of time. The fact is that in February 2003 Tim Flannery and I addressed the National Press Club on the River Murray. What we did at that stage was tell the National Press Club—which was, of course, broadcast around the country—that, whilst there had been a special meeting of the premiers (quite rightly, after the Bali bombing) on terrorism, that Howard had called the year before, there needed to be (this was in February 2003) a similar premiers' conference specifically called because of the dire straits of the River Murray; the artery of the nation that was becoming sclerotic.

We talked about massive increases in salinity in Lake Alexandrina, which was at a 20-year low, with salinity levels being twice the World Health Organisation standards. We called for that meeting to be held, but it took nearly four years for John Howard to respond to my plea for a special premiers' conference on the River Murray. I wrote to the Prime Minister—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Do you want to talk?

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader will come to order. The Premier.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: And, of course, what—

Ms Chapman: Mr Speaker, the Premier has resumed his seat, now with this jack-in-the-box type tactic. He's resumed his seat; he's finished answering the question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. The Premier is quite within his rights to take his seat to allow me an opportunity to bring the house to order, and I suggest members not engage in a deliberate tactic to disrupt his answer. The Premier.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Thank you, sir. So, nearly four years passed and then, not anything to do with the River Murray, but about polls, what happened is that John Howard called a special meeting of the premiers, in November 2006 (on Melbourne Cup day), where we were told, by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, that there was a one in 1,000 year record low inflow into the River Murray. I angered the Prime Minister that day by revealing that to a news conference straight afterwards—even though that is what we had been told.

But the fact of the matter is—and this is interesting because this needs to be expressed very clearly—what happened that day (supported by the Liberal opposition in South Australia), is that the Prime Minister called on all of us to sign over our constitutional powers over the River Murray to the federal government in order to get the $10 billion package. I said, even though we were the downstream state, that we were prepared to do that, but only if there was an independent commission set up to run the River Murray. There was a scathing attack on me as a result of that, by John Howard and by Malcolm Turnbull who then, I think, was Parliamentary Secretary on the River Murray.

I remember an unannounced meeting in my office in Adelaide—and I have not revealed this before—in which Malcolm Turnbull came into my office and read the riot act to me. Really scary! No-one these days listens to merchant bankers; certainly not me. But he came in and I told him, 'Look, I know you've got a ticking clock on your own ambition, as well as the federal election, but this is about the future of the River Murray.' He told me that I was like a shag on a rock, that I was out on a limb, that none of the other premiers would support me on an independent commission.

Then the Liberals in South Australia condemned me and asked me to sign without safeguarding South Australia's interest by having a commission that ran the River Murray on the basis of science, not on the basis of politics. Because what they were asking us to do was to hand over constitutional powers, but without the safeguards put in. We wanted the River Murray to be run on the basis of science, not on the basis of the state's vested interest or, indeed, politicians in the federal parliament under the vested interests of cotton and rice growers. So, the battle for the River Murray began, and we did shuttle diplomacy. The River Murray minister, the member for Chaffey—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond will come to order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: And one by one we got Peter Beattie, the then premier of Queensland, and Morris Iemma to then support the sign-up for an independent commission, and John Howard said, 'Leave Victoria to me'—to him. Then we went to a meeting—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Well, he did. We went to a meeting which was called by—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop will come to order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: We went to a meeting that was again called by the former prime minister John Howard, and I remember what happened, because he left the room. There was a huge blue, because he did not want that independent commission, and he left the room. Eventually we cracked a deal and the deal that we cracked involved the federal government, after Morris Iemma and Peter Beattie had come out, and then John Howard supported the South Australian position.

Then, of course, we had recalcitrance from Victoria under both the federal Liberals and under federal Labor, until we have the deal that we have this year, which sees us—because we passed it through this parliament—hand over our constitutional powers to the commonwealth, because we know that there will be an independent commission that sets the basin cap. We have seen New South Wales pass their legislation.

I urge people to read the contribution in the federal parliament yesterday, because the South Australian Liberals and the federal Liberals are totally at odds with each other over water. The Leader of the Opposition in this state basically does not know what he says from one day to the next.

Ms CHAPMAN: I rise on a point of order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: He contradicts himself in the hope and expectation that the media will let him get away with it.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will come to order.

Ms CHAPMAN: How long do we have to listen to this, Mr Speaker? The question was very specific: does he support the Goulburn Valley pipeline, or doesn't he? It has nothing to do with what he is talking about.

The SPEAKER: Order! The deputy leader will contain herself or she will find herself out of here. The Premier was engaging in debate.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: So, what happened is that we finally got Victoria to sign the IGA, the intergovernmental agreement on the River Murray. We got them to sign the MOU. We got them to sign up, on national television in front of the prime minister, to the intergovernmental agreement, and the next step is to make sure that they get their legislation through the parliament. If you speak with the Mike Youngs, if you speak with any of the water experts, what is needed is the transfer of powers of the River Murray over to the federal government for the long term, but run by an independent commission. So, if you want to support high jinks in the upper house of the federal parliament that would abort that agreement then you would be responsible for the death knell of the River Murray.

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

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